Hp and Acer confirmed that they would be raising the UK prices of their desktop, laptop and server systems. They have said that the move was necessary due to the increasing strength of the dollar against the pound, which has pushed the price of components to a level where maintaining current system pricing was unsustainable. The price changes are expected to take effect this coming Monday (14/09/2008).

Speaking to CRN, Dave Poskett, director of Solutions Partner Organisation for the UK & Ireland at HP had the following to say:

We will finalise over the next couple of days what the increases will be, but they are likely to be in the mid to high single digits. It will vary by specific product categories, we looked at and the cost of doing business for all the business units and at this stage it has been determined there is a requirement to raise prices for ISS and PSG, but not for the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) or storage.

Although the prices are expected to rise on Monday, these are for vendor to distributor sales, and retail prices are not expected to change until later this year. Other system vendors are expected to follow suit soon.